By Andrew L. Jaffee

I always thought it was kind of obvious that Americans were evolving — seeing people as more than just black and white (skin colors) — especially since the late ’60s. Just look at the Bush Administration, which “appointed a more diverse set of top advisers than any president in history”, like Condoleezza Rice, Colin L. Powell, Roderick R. Paige, Alphonso Jackson, Claude Allen, Leo S. Mackay, Jr., Larry D. Thompson, and Stephen A. Perry.

Obama wouldn’t have been elected if not for white voters (if we can define what “white” means). Many children who may have written their own futures off because of their race will now have new hope for success, and they will know that working hard and getting educated, as Obama did, is important. It will also be harder for people to shirk personal responsibility by using the race card as many consider the presidency the highest achievement in the land, and an African-American has made it.

Confirmation that race is becoming less important to Americans has come from none other than the New York Times in a story entitled, “For Pollsters, the Racial Effect That Wasn’t:”

All the ominous predictions, all the fretting about hidden votes and closeted racists frustrating a victory for the nation’s first African-American president came down to this: the so-called Bradley effect did not exist.

People did not lie — to pollsters or to themselves — about whether they would vote for a black man. The polls, national and statewide, generally predicted the results with accuracy.

“The unambiguous answer is that there was no Bradley effect,” said Mark Blumenthal, the editor and publisher of Pollster.com, a Web site that publishes and analyzes poll results. …

But if election polling showed anything about attitudes on race, it may have been about Americans’ quickness to ascribe racial motives; to some extent, they blame racism more than they actually act on it — or at least, vote on it. In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in late October, Obama supporters were more likely than McCain voters to say they knew someone who was not supporting Mr. Obama because he is black. McCain backers were more likely than Obama supporters to say they knew someone who was supporting him because he is black. …